Champagne!

To Ludovic and Sylvain

"Friendship is a subject that interests me a lot. I find it almost richer than the theme of love... I have a dozen friends around me and I know that if I met some of them today, they might not become my friends! But after 30 years with them, I accept them and love them for what they are, with their faults and their qualities. They are part of my life. I am building a wooden house in the depths of Patagonia and when I sent them an email to ask if any of them wanted to come and help me, to participate in this dream, they all dropped everything to join me there... We spent a month together sharing this and it inspired me a lot to feed the characters and situations of my film... " - Nicolas Vanier

Friendship is what allows each of us to find our balance, to discuss the meaning of life and our main fears that animate each day of our lives such as losing a loved one or finally finding the person with whom to share our life. While American cinema is at the top of the world box-office, it is often refreshing to discover a new French film that celebrates friendship and especially the good pleasures of life around a table, especially if there is a good bottle of champagne to drink and various topics to discuss. 

The writer and director Nicolas Vanier shows with his new film Champagne! an undeniable will to try new cinematographic experiences. Thus, after having directed many animal documentaries or films celebrating nature in all its forms, Champagne! takes up the principle of the collegiate film with a sumptuous cast and does not seek at any time to put the spectators in awe but rather to celebrate friendship, the turpitude of life as a couple and above all good food (in this case champagne as its title indicates). So after a short description of the main characters, Jean, Patrick, Joanna, Romane and Guillaume, they get together for a vacation in Champagne for the bachelor party of Patrick (Stéphane De Groodt), the last bachelor of the group. 

While Romane (Elsa Zylberstin) and Irina (Stéfi Celma) have a hard time keeping their Champagne vineyard running, they welcome their long-time friends with pleasure even if the atmosphere is not great and settling of scores seems inevitable to spice up their thirty-year friendship.  Between problems with the harvest and mounting debts, the unexpected arrival of Patrick's future wife will lead to verbal confrontations between this group of friends, provoking arguments, laughter and tensions from the past.

Nicolas Vanier, after having carefully filmed nature and its beauty, seems to take a malicious pleasure here in examining human relationships in all their forms, whether it be love, the life of couples, personal misguidance or friendship. He knows how to direct his cast of actors perfectly to get the best out of them and each of them plays with the others in tune and we take a real pleasure in seeing them interfere with each other. Whether Elsa Zylberstein, Sylvie Testud, Marie-Julie Baup, Stéfi Celma, Valérie Karsenti, Arièle Semenoff, Claire Chust or renowned actors François-Xavier Demaison, Stéphane De Grood, Éric Elmosnino, André Penvern and François Berléand, the cast of this film is certainly a great asset to discover this film. Certainly the film will not revolutionize the dramatic comedy and does not have either the will to do it but we spend excellent moments in this house of Champagne to follow this story which shows us again the importance to have friends and especially to fight for right reasons.

Champagne !
Directed by Nicolas Vanier
Produced by Clément Miserez, Matthieu Warter, Renaud Laplanche and Xavier Nemo
Written by Xavier Nemo, Nicolas Vanier
With Elsa Zylberstein, François-Xavier Demaison, Stéphane De Grood, Éric Elmosnino, Sylvie Testud, Stéfi Celma, Valérie Karsenti, Marie-Julie Baup, André Penvern, Claire Chust, Arièle Semenoff, François Berléand 
Music : Astrid Gomez-Montoya, Rebecca Delannet
Image : Éric Guichard
Editing : Raphaële Urtin
Production company : Radar Films
Distributed by SND (France)
Release date : June 8, 2022 (France)
Running time : 103 minutes

Seen on June 17, 2022 at Gaumont Disney Village, Room 10 seat A19

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